Hot Toys - MMS DX 01- The Dark Knight - The Joker spec and pics

[Buttmunch]

I really find all of this behind the scenes stuff facinating (and it is great to hear Heath and Gary are decent guys), but we do need to get this thread back on track.

But Just a Freak, if you want to start a thread about your experiences on the set, please do.

 

[villainsfan42]

Man you should have asked Gary oldman to let Hot Toys use his likeness to make a Gordon figure Infact if I ever meet any actor, thats the only thing i would be concerned with. How could you say no?! I wonder If Aaron Ekhart knows about the two-face figure? Its basically the Aaron Ekhart action figure

aaron ekhart obviously knows about the two-face figure, since hot toys kidnapped him, shrinked him, and cloned him...duh.

 

[Just A Freak]

I really find all of this behind the scenes stuff facinating (and it is great to hear Heath and Gary are decent guys), but we do need to get this thread back on track.

But Just a Freak, if you want to start a thread about your experiences on the set, please do.

Sorry about that.

I wouldn't know where to start. So many times I was on the set from Batman Begins to The Dark Knight.

 

[Voorhees27]

aaron ekhart obviously knows about the two-face figure, since hot toys kidnapped him, shrinked him, and cloned him...duh.

Yeah! ^^^^ I thought everyone knew about that already.

 

[villainsfan42]

I'm suggesting they are spinning the reason why the V1 had serious likeness issues. I don't know about where you work, but I'm not allowed to badmouth my company, it's in my contract. Isn't it reasonable to assume that Yulli, as an employee, isn't going to bad mouth Hot Toys either.

It just doesn't make sense that Hot Toys would go to the trouble of throwing together a figure, of this subject matter, so lightly, and that the V1 turned out so bad, considering Yulli's awesome talent, even if the reference material was so scarce. There are still plenty of Heath Ledger pictures about to sculpt him without make up and add the scars, then paint it up, and have it come out better than what it did. Even now Hot Toys still has V1 up, and I quote "featuring - Authentic likeness of the JOKER."

As far as believing the source, I put that in the category of gullibility. I didn't say she lied either, though the incentive would be to pull the wool over their customers eyes, considering the backlash of comments that were made once the BR Joker was unveiled. They never said a word about it till that happened. I suppose that was just a coincidence as well.

so bad?
...it may not be perfect, but "so bad?" ooookay...

lying is pulling wool over someone's eyes...

i think you're going a bit too far, but you do have a valid point. they make mess ups on purpose so you could buy a fixed figure, and then in no time, we the gullible collectors will have ten of the same figure, only with slight fixes, so it looks perfectly screen accurate. while i love the figures, it is a bit of a scam. if they could make the new figure look sooo crazy good, then why couldn't v1 looked quite as perfect?

 

[villainsfan42]

Yeah! ^^^^ I thought everyone knew about that already.

and then they started selling his clones to... US!

 

[plasmid303]

I'm suggesting they are spinning the reason why the V1 had serious likeness issues. I don't know about where you work, but I'm not allowed to badmouth my company, it's in my contract. Isn't it reasonable to assume that Yulli, as an employee, isn't going to bad mouth Hot Toys either.

It just doesn't make sense that Hot Toys would go to the trouble of throwing together a figure, of this subject matter, so lightly, and that the V1 turned out so bad, considering Yulli's awesome talent, even if the reference material was so scarce. There are still plenty of Heath Ledger pictures about to sculpt him without make up and add the scars, then paint it up, and have it come out better than what it did. Even now Hot Toys still has V1 up, and I quote "featuring - Authentic likeness of the JOKER."

As far as believing the source, I put that in the category of gullibility. I didn't say she lied either, though the incentive would be to pull the wool over their customers eyes, considering the backlash of comments that were made once the BR Joker was unveiled. They never said a word about it till that happened. I suppose that was just a coincidence as well.

Why would they need to spin the reason why the sculpt turned out bad? What would they gain from that? I don't see your perceived conspiracy. Why would Hot Toys release an inaccurate sculpt to dupe us when they haven't had a history of doing so?

I dunno dude, like karamzov, maulfan, and others have said, I'd chalk it up to lack of accurate reference material and time. To add to the difficulty, it didn't help that the Joker's likeness in stills can be misleading because of how easily his facial features can change and contort from photo to photo. And Hot Toys at the time couldn't have known what prosthetics were applied to Ledger's face, so just doing a sculpt of Ledger wouldn't have worked.

 

[Salvation/Damnation]

shotgun for joker...
the top one in this one is screen accurate if you saw off the end and the top front...

see..

batman's grenade launcher...just paint it silver...

How did the guy add a pump handle to his custom shotgun. I can see the stock and front barrel have been removed, but the gun has no pump handle compared to the custom.

 

[Just A Freak]

so bad?
...it may not be perfect, but "so bad?" ooookay...

lying is pulling wool over someone's eyes...

v1 Joker is an absolute terrible likeness. Definitively.

It is one of the least accurate The Dark Knight Joker products out there in terms of it's likeness.

 

[creecher]

so bad?
...it may not be perfect, but "so bad?" ooookay...

lying is pulling wool over someone's eyes...

You've jumped into this in between comments, between karamazov80 and myself. When I said bad it was concerning the sculpt alone. I think the outfit is really well done. Even more so, now that it has been brought to my attention that Yulli mentioned the lack of reference material. How could they get the costume so right? Amazing.

Lying is not telling the truth. Pulling the wool over someones eyes concerns deceit, something altogether different.

And don't worry about thread derailment you guys. It'll get back on track.

 

[villainsfan42]

How did the guy add a pump handle to his custom shotgun. I can see the stock and front barrel have been removed, but the gun has no pump handle compared to the custom.

there is no custom shotgun. one is a pack of shotguns you can buy, and the other is a photo of the exact shotgun used in the movie.

if you bought the pack, you would have to sand the front and back off.

 

[villainsfan42]

You've jumped into this in between comments, between karamazov80 and myself. When I said bad it was concerning the sculpt alone. I think the outfit is really well done. Even more so, now that it has been brought to my attention that Yulli mentioned the lack of reference material. How could they get the costume so right? Amazing.

Lying is not telling the truth. Pulling the wool over someones eyes concerns deceit, something altogether different.

And don't worry about thread derailment you guys. It'll get back on track.

also, harue had pics of joker. those pics were the same promotional ones of him, full body, with the gray background. so they did have a likeness to use. i do agree with you to some extent.

 

[creecher]

Why would they need to spin the reason why the sculpt turned out bad? What would they gain from that? I don't see your perceived conspiracy. Why would Hot Toys release an inaccurate sculpt to dupe us when they haven't had a history of doing so?

I dunno dude, like karamzov, maulfan, and others have said, I'd chalk it up to lack of accurate reference material and time. To add to the difficulty, it didn't help that the Joker's likeness in stills can be misleading because of how easily his facial features can change and contort from photo to photo. And Hot Toys at the time couldn't have known what prosthetics were applied to Ledger's face, so just doing a sculpt of Ledger wouldn't have worked.

Conspiracy now. Looks like this is getting escalated beyond the obvious. The fact is Hot Toys do have a history of inaccurate sculpts. I made no mention of them duping us. Seems people like to read their own slant into my comments.

Don't you think it is reasonable, in order to purchase a license, there would be some co-operation between the consenting parties to get all necessary reference material to the licensee in order for the best rendition to be made. Any reference material of the Joker would have been photographic. Any of these photo's would have shown the scarring at the mouth. The first leaked pic looked something like this, as I recall.

Doing a sculpt of Ledger would have worked better though. Just adding some scupltey around the mouth of a Heath sculpt would have been better.

 

[Centrocal]

I know the V1 likeness is off but i still like it simply because of the expression. That evil smile looks really cool and sinister. Thats the attitude Joker supposed to have. I like a wily and sly Joker. He's not supposed to be a grumpy grump.

 

[plasmid303]

Conspiracy now. Looks like this is getting escalated beyond the obvious. The fact is Hot Toys do have a history of inaccurate sculpts. I made no mention of them duping us. Seems people like to read their own slant into my comments.

Don't you think it is reasonable, in order to purchase a license, there would be some co-operation between the consenting parties to get all necessary reference material to the licensee in order for the best rendition to be made. Any reference material of the Joker would have been photographic. Any of these photo's would have shown the scarring at the mouth. The first leaked pic looked something like this, as I recall.

Doing a sculpt of Ledger would have worked better though. Just adding some scupltey around the mouth of a Heath sculpt would have been better.

Okay I'll concede to it being within the realm of possibility, but I still don't see it as some machiavellian scheme to trick us. Are you just sore that they didn't outright say "our sculpt sucks" but instead reasoned it as lack of reference material? Or is it because of the mere existence of this new Joker figure that set this off?

I'm willing to believe you, because what you saying is fairly convincing and altogether possible, but without anything more than unsubstantiated conjecture this doesn't amount to much.

 

[Mesa]

I know it's probably been discussed, I'm late to the thread, but how much is this guy going to cost?

 

[creecher]

This isn't an either or, depending on what you may see as me being 'sore'. I'm just putting the pieces together as I see them. Capt Jack with none too stellar likeness, then wha laa, Cannibal Jack with sterling likeness. Batman Begins with generic likeness, Dark Knight Batmen with spot on likeness. The marines and Superman. Their first Terminator, Robocop and Scissorhands, no likeness but they had the ability to inform us before hand, rather than explain it so late down the track, as with Joker.

I'm not saying they are out to trick us. What I am saying is they choose the information that gets released. The information we read. Their marketing is very clever, you could say, or deceitful and manipulative as I prefer to call it, but hey, that's marketing. As an example, we don't get edition sizes, so we really don't know how limited these figures are. Knowing could affect their sales. Some collectors would consider 15,000 of an item as being mass produced and therefore not a collectible. These figures take some time from acquiring a licence, to proto, to production, to release. Some of these 2nd releases have come hot on the heels of earlier versions. That doesn't happen by accident.

 

[creecher]

how much is this guy going to cost?[/SIZE]

Around the $170 mark.

 

[Salvation/Damnation]

I'm just trying as hard as I can to see tom hanks in the sculpt, I still don't see it in the sculpt. I don't know what your talking about?

 

[kazukijun]

This isn't an either or, depending on what you may see as me being 'sore'. I'm just putting the pieces together as I see them. Capt Jack with none too stellar likeness, then wha laa, Cannibal Jack with sterling likeness. Batman Begins with generic likeness, Dark Knight Batmen with spot on likeness. The marines and Superman. Their first Terminator, Robocop and Scissorhands, no likeness but they had the ability to inform us before hand, rather than explain it so late down the track, as with Joker.

I'm not saying they are out to trick us. What I am saying is they choose the information that gets released. The information we read. Their marketing is very clever, you could say, or deceitful and manipulative as I prefer to call it, but hey, that's marketing. As an example, we don't get edition sizes, so we really don't know how limited these figures are. Knowing could affect their sales. Some collectors would consider 15,000 of an item as being mass produced and therefore not a collectible. These figures take some time from acquiring a licence, to proto, to production, to release. Some of these 2nd releases have come hot on the heels of earlier versions. That doesn't happen by accident.

Agreed!!!!
I feel the same way too, with Yulli's talents, the ver.1 Joker she sculpted should have at least a passing resemblance to Heath Ledger and not some totally random dude in Joker make up. Also, I do not believe that when a company grants another company rights to produce products for them, they don't give them enough reference materials to produce the products. (its like hey, you got the rights now, just sculpt some random dude & release him as the joker)

I feel that all this just a well planned marketing strategy, that worked too well. Cos most of us are buying the figures....